A BITTER legal battle which tore apart the family behind the multi-million pound "Patak's" spices empire ended today in a provisional £12 million settlement.

A BITTER legal battle which tore apart the family behind the multi-million pound "Patak's" spices empire ended today in a provisional £12 million settlement.

A peace pact was agreed in the High Court between company boss Kirit Pathak and his two married sisters, who claimed they had been cheated out of shares allocated to them by their late father.

The sisters, Chitralekha Mehta, 56, and Anila Shastri, 52, said later that they will receive a total of around £6 million each under the settlement.

Mrs Mehta said: "We are both very happy. We have won and the truth has prevailed.

"This was not about the money. We have fought this case to get back what we thought was rightfully ours - that is, the shares in the company."

But the deal will not be completed until the details have been translated into Gujerati so that the family's 77-year-old matriarch, Shantagaury Pathak, can agree to it.

Mrs Pathak was co-defendant with her son in an action brought by the sisters, who said they were victims of a Hindu culture in which business assets always went to the sons of a family.

The legal costs of the case, which ran for more than six weeks, are expected to reach £1 million. The sisters were legally-aided.

The sisters claimed that the 1,250 shares registered in each of their names in 1974 were still rightfully theirs and had been unlawfully transferred to their mother and then on to their brothers in a rationalisation of the company's finances in 1989.

But Kirit, 51, and his mother accused them of greed, gold-digging and opportunism in their attempt to get their hands on shares in the Lancashire-based business, which had grown spectacularly over the years and now had an annual turnover of more than £54 million.

During the hearing in London, Kirit, of Orchard House, Victoria Road, Heaton, Bolton, told Mr Justice Evans-Lombe that his sisters' action was "completely at odds with the Hindu culture and practices of the Pathak family" under which everyone understood that the business would pass to the sons.

That culture, he said, avoided the "possible interference of in-laws" and complemented the Hindu custom of sons looking after their parents in old age and daughters leaving to live with their husbands' families.

The shares were only registered in his sisters' names as "an arrangement of convenience".

The sisters knew the stock would eventually go back, and they knowingly signed transfer forms to that effect, he said.

The Patak spice company is estimated to be worth around £54 million and Mr Pathak's personal wealth is estimated at £75 million.

Asked whether there could now be a reconciliation in the family, Mrs Mehta said: "That is up to him. He wronged me but he is still my brother."

Prakash Patel, the sisters' solicitor, confirmed that the sisters were seeking a total settlement estimated at more than £12 million but said that this depended on the current value of the shares and it had to be finally agreed within the family and the company bankers.

If the terms are agreed, then the case will return to the High Court to be approved by Mr Justice Evans-Lombe.

When the case resumed today after a five-week adjournment for peace talks, John McDonnell QC, for the sisters, said an agreement had been reached, subject to the details being explained to Mrs Pathak and the approval of Barings as trustees of many of the shares in the Patak group.

The judge said: "Intra-family disputes such as this are extremely difficult matters to settle and a case like this is a tragedy.

"The court is delighted when a settlement is arrived at, however long it takes."

Lawyers involved in the case later revised the settlement figure down to a total of around £8 million, made up of more than £6 million in the share value and £2 million in compensation.